This One’s For You

Later tonight I'm going to have a drink in honor of all of my homeless Military brothers.

I spent a lot of time in counseling with many military brothers that just couldn't get past what they've seen and done. I know a lot of them are shivering under the overpasses tonight in this cold weather.

I can't express to you how much I wish that I could help them but the truth is that nobody can. There depth of pain is unimaginable to people that lead normal lives. Being out in the cold is just a miniscule part of their hard lives.

They gave up who they were for us and we just seem to let them fall between the cracks. I know, they should be stronger, they should get a job, they should earn money and get themselves off of the streets, but I've sat in those rooms with them and I've heard the stories. I've seen the biggest, baddest men that you've ever seen crying like a baby.

One friend that I met lived life just like everyone else but he kept getting angry with himself for falling in to a depression at times. This man was an older man and he just didn’t understand why he wasn’t strong enough. He had been in a situation where they had been receiving incoming artillery and mortar fire day and night for over 70 days. He had been close to ending his life on several occasions because he thought he was weak. He didn’t understand that the scars from psychological damage are just as valid as those that are visible.

I can’t tell you the details of the stories because of confidentiality but sometimes when I start to think that my life was hard I stop to think about those men and the things that they've seen.

When I’m sitting in our house and its a nice warm 58 degrees I think about those men that are huddled under newspapers in cardboard boxes in temperatures that are below freezing. Sometimes when I’m home alone I turn the heater down so I can feel some of what they feel.

Many of the men and women that are fighting now will be the future homeless, the troubled ones, the ones that wake up screaming each night. They will be the ones that most of us don’t see, or at least pretend that we don’t see when we pass them on the street.

Tonight, I’ll drink one for them.